Farewell

Kate looked out of the tiny window, down at the forest and the beach below – towards the shoreline where they'd set up their first camp, the place where it had all started – and as they started on their long journey out to sea she turned to Sawyer in the seat beside her. In all the excitement of making it to the plane, and in her desperation to save Claire and convince her to come with them, she hadn't spared a thought for the one person she'd really wanted to be able to share this experience with now.

Her heart would be forever broken – the pain of loss already tearing her apart – and the tears welled in her eyes as she realised that she was never going to see him again.

"Jack's gone isn't he?" She choked as she asked Sawyer the one question she really didn't want to know the answer to.

But Sawyer nodded. "I think so Freckles." He sighed. "I think so." And as Kate started to sob he wrapped a comforting arm around her.

Kate cried freely, the tears spilling over onto her cheeks and soaking Sawyer's t-shirt until she felt that she couldn't cry anymore. It took a few more heaving breaths however before she was finally able to calm her dry sobs.

When she'd dried her eyes she looked up, and was surprised to see the wet tear stains on Sawyer's own cheeks, before it dawned on her what he'd just called her.

"You just called me Freckles." She sniffed. "I haven't heard you call me that in such a long time."

Sawyer looked down at her. "We're the same now, you and me." He smiled sadly. "Juliet's gone too… she's not coming back either."

Of course, Sawyer was hurting too, and she hadn't even noticed – she hadn't even considered him throughout all of this, nor spared a thought for how he must have been feeling.

First Jack, and now Sawyer – she'd been so selfish.

Kate didn't say anything, she couldn't, as another flow of silent tears escaped her words failed her. No amount could even begin to communicate how she was feeling anyway, nor what she really wanted to say – but her expression said it all.

A few moments of silence lapsed between them until Sawyer turned back to face her.

"I'll look after you." He spoke so softly that she wasn't sure she'd even heard him correctly at first.

"What?" She frowned.

"I said I'd look after you." He said in his familiar southern drawl, as she too turned to look back up at him.

All trace of resentment and the bitterness he had once felt had gone from his face now – the Sawyer they'd all come to know in the days and weeks immediately following the crash had gone. He'd turned into someone Kate barely recognised at first, but it was a change which had been slowly taking place in front of her eyes. From that first lonely night they'd all spent together – shell-shocked, traumatised, terrified, and looking to each other for comfort and reassurance, the island had changed them all – Sawyer included.

"We're all that's left now Freckles." He told her. "We should stick together, I'm willing to bet that right now you need me, and I sure as hell need you." He shrugged. "Who'd believe us anyway?"

Despite her tears Kate smiled at him. He was right… of course he was right.

"You really miss her don't you?" She asked him, as she dried her eyes on the back of her hands, just as another flow of tears escaped her.

Sawyer nodded. "Every second of every day." He said.

"I'm going to miss Jack so much." She sobbed as she leaned back into his comforting embrace. "I never thought goodbye would hurt so much… I really love him."

"I know Freckles." He sighed, tears still glistening in his own eyes. "I guess I always knew deep down. You needed stability, not someone who would lead you even further astray, I understand. Juliet saved me, she changed me too. She showed me that there was a better side to me, a side I'd turned my back on a long time ago… I'd been so angry for so long, but with her it was as though none of what happened in the past mattered anymore. I was able to be the man I might have been if Sawyer had never crossed paths with my parents… because for the first time since I was a child I knew that I was loved." He choked. "And I loved her too…"

She nodded – understanding where he was coming from, but unable to respond.

"Kate…" He suddenly faltered as she reached out affectionately to caress the cold and clammy fingers of his palm.

"What is it?" She asked him, as she felt his body tense beneath her embrace, sensing that something more was preying upon his mind, but Sawyer simply shook his head.

"Nothing." He reassured her.

Kate sighed. "Jack proposed to me." She revealed sadly, and Sawyer immediately looked down at her – surprised.

"We were engaged for a while." She explained.

"What happened?" He asked, trying not to appear too interested, but his curiosity getting the better of him.

Kate shook her head. "Nothing…" She explained. "Perhaps that was the problem… things just proved too difficult to maintain a relationship after we left the island. I had Aaron to look after, and Jack was struggling to readjust to a normal life again… I guess it just wasn't the right time for either of us… I kept the ring though." She smiled, before turning to take one final glance out of the tiny window, the tears still streaming down her face. "I didn't even get the chance to say goodbye."

"I don't think this is goodbye." Sawyer shook his head.

"What do you mean?" Kate frowned.

They held each other's watery gaze – and as he did so a strange smile passed over his face. "I don't know." He responded. "Just a feeling I've got, as though they're all still here, they're not really gone…" He sniffed. "After she died I asked Miles to try and contact her. Juliet asked Miles to tell me that the bomb worked. I think maybe… I don't know. I just don't think this is the end… only the beginning."

Another frown furrowed Kate's brow – she was perplexed by Sawyer's words. This certainly wasn't the Sawyer they'd all once come to know – this was a sad, and sensitive version of the man she'd once harboured feelings for.

"So where do we go from here?" She asked. "How do we carry on?"

Sawyer sighed. "Wear the ring Freckles, wear it every day to remind you of Jack, and the ones we loved will never truly leave us."

"I don't think I can live without him." She sobbed.

"You're going to have to!" Sawyer exclaimed, his expression suddenly vehement, and he gently reached out a hand to turn her cheek to face him, tilting her chin with a delicate finer until she was looking up into his eyes. "Like Claire's had to live without Charlie… like I'll have to live without Juliet."

Kate shook her head, shaking off his gentle hold. "It's too hard." She choked.

"It's never easy, for anyone to live without the ones they love…" He told her. "Do you think it was easy for Jack to do what he did? He did it for you Freckles! He died so you could live! Are you really going to let everything he did be in vein, and throw it all away?"

Kate looked back at him with bewildered astonishment, the tears still glistened in her eyes and against her soft and pale cheeks, but she shook her head slowly.

"I never thought I'd hear you of all people sticking up for Jack." She smiled.

"Things change Freckles." Sawyer told her, as he wrapped his arms tightly around her slender form once more and pulled her into a tight and reassuring embrace. There would have once been a time when such a gesture might have led to something more between the two of them, but their heart's no longer belonged to each other. Kate settled down into the safe and comforting fold of his arms… the man she was going to have to learn to rely on from now on… the only one now left alive who truly understood what she was going through.

"People change… this island's changed us all. I get the feeling nothing after this is going to be quite the same again." He said, and whilst Kate closed her eyes and let the warmth of his body sooth her into sleep Sawyer turned his head towards the sky.

"See ya doc." He whispered. "Take care of Jules for me."

There was so much more he wanted to say – 'thank you' to Jack for everything he'd done, and to reassure him that he would look after Kate. He wanted to reassure him that he would never let anything happen to her, and to apologise for the animosity between them which had – in the early days – been entirely his fault.

But he somehow knew that he didn't have to, he would get his chance to tell him someday – he didn't know when and he didn't know how – but in the meantime Jack's sacrifice and the strength of feeling he had that they were all still out there somewhere - everyone they'd come to love, and had lost - would give him the strength to face the rest of his life without Juliet and to make the most of the time he had to live it – and to help Kate to do the same.